Homage To Mary From The Devil

The little parish of Ars was to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It is relevant to note here that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had not yet been proclaimed and was not, in fact, promulgated until a year after this homage was recorded. Then an entirely unexpected event occurred. Antoine Gay, a poor soul possessed by the Devil Isacaron who came to the Chapel to under go Exorcism under the Parish Priest, was found kneeling at the foot of a statue of the Virgin, his arms extended in the form of a cross, and his eyes filled with tears. From his lips there streamed forth this solemn declaration which could only have come from the infernal spirit that possessed him, since Antoine Gay himself had not the theological background to pronounce such an impressive discourse.

“O Mary, Mary, masterpiece of God’s handiwork: God has made nothing greater than thee! Incomparable creation, admiration of all the heavenly host! All honour thee, all obey thee and acknowledge thee as Mother of the Creator. Thou art raised above the angels and above all the court of Heaven: thou art seated near to God, thou art the Temple of Deity, thou hast carried in thy womb all that is strongest and greatest and most powerful and most loving! …

Mary, thou hast received in thy virginal womb Him who created thee, thou art Virgin and Mother, there is none to be compared with thee. After God, thou art the greatest; thou art the Strong Woman, there is more glory to God in thee than in the heavenly host ….

In thee there has been no stain, Anathema be they that deny that thou art Virgin and Mother; thou wast conceived without sin, thou art immaculate …!

I praise thee, O Mary, but all my praises of thee ascend unto God, the author of all good. After the Sacred Heart of Jesus there is no heart to be compared with thine. O loving heart! O tender heart! Thou wilt not abandon even the most thankless or the most guilty of mortals. Thy heart is overflowing with kindness, even to the unfortunate who merit chastisement alone, yet thou obtainest for them grace and compassion: the worst of sinners is converted by thee!

O, if all the inhabitants of the earth should know thee! If they could understand thy tenderness, thy power, thy goodness, not one of them should perish! All that turn to thee in trust and hope and pray to thee continually, whatever their state may be, thou wilt save them, thou wilt bless them eternally…. I am compelled to humble myself at thy feet and implore thy pardon for all the outrages I inflict on the one I possess!

I confess today, one of the most solemn feasts of the whole year, that thy divine Son compels me to say that it is the most solemn of all the feasts”.

Thus spoke Isacaron, the devil of impurity, through the mouth of Antoine Gay, and the words were noted by M. Houzelot, who has handed them down. After this enforced confession, we understand more clearly why Mary, five years later, should have answered Bernadette’s plea to reveal her name, by saying: ‘I am thee Immaculate Conception!’

The Abbe Toccanier, assistant to the saintly Cure d’Ars, was present when this memorable panegyric to the Blessed Virgin was pronounced by Isacaron.

It occurred to M. Houzelot to ask Isacaron to dictate more slowly all that he had said, so that he could write it down, and the devil complied. The Abbe Toccanier could not conceal his emotion. ‘There has been nothing like it since the Fathers of the Church,’ he declared to the onlookers. Incidentally, on another occasion, he undertook a theological discussion with the devil, and was amazed at his capacity for close and accurate reasoning, in the most orthodox terms.

-(Taken from the Book, Evidence of Satan In the Modern World, by Rev. Fr. Leon Cristiani 1959).